The
Center for Creative Voices in Media "is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to preserving in America's media the original, independent, and diverse creative voices that enrich our nation's culture and safeguard its democracy."
Creative Voices seeks a "pro-competitive, pro-diversity" outcome for Adelphia takeover
Its latest newsletter contains a call for "Pro-Competitive, Pro-Diversity Conditions on Comcast, Time Warner Takeover of Adelphia," as follows:
Creative Voices has joined the
"Competition and Diversity Coalition on the Adelphia Transaction" (CADCAT), which calls on the
FCC to protect consumers if Comcast and Time Warner are permitted to takeover Adelphia. Without significant conditions attached to that deal, Comcast and Time Warner Cable will control half of America’s cable homes and have an even tighter chokehold over regional and local markets, solidifying their gatekeeper power over television. Their market power is already so great that when they favor their own networks over independents, as they repeatedly do, the independents are out of business. Thus, they rob not just their own customers, but all Americans of independent and diverse voices and viewpoints. Without significant conditions, this takeover will make a mockery of Congress’s goal of a ‘level playing field’ in cable. It also has the potential to make both Comcast and Time Warner gatekeepers dominating the Internet, as they are two of the nation’! s largest broadband Internet access providers (more on this in the next item).
Creative Voices' 65 page report,
Cable’s "Level Playing Field" – Not Level. No Field. is playing an important role in this fight. Recounting the real-life experiences and observations of top players in the cable business, including some of the pioneers who created the cable industry such as Leo Hindery, John Malone, Ted Turner, and Barry Diller, this report documents that the “level playing field" required by law and regulation does not exist today in America’s cable industry. Instead, today's giant cable operators seek to control the content they distribute, whether they deliver it via cable television or broadband Internet. Not only does this endanger independent and diverse creative voices, it poses real threats to free speech, free expression, and, ultimately, democracy and culture. CV’s report has received considerable press coverage, including two November columns in
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Comcast’s hometown paper!
Creative Voices wants an "open Internet"
Creative Voices also raises the question of "The Internet: Open or Closed?" and comes out in favor of "open," in these remarks:
Broadband is rapidly taking over from slow dial-up telephone service as the way Americans access the Internet. But the rules governing broadband are very different. Big Cable and Telephone companies want to use these lax broadband rules to “take over” the Internet. Essentially, their plan is to charge not only their broadband consumer subscribers, but
also the websites and services the consumer is trying to reach on the Internet -- like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and any other website or web service. Those websites and services that pay these broadband gatekeepers higher fees will find it easier to reach consumers and vice versa; those that don’t will receive discriminatory, slower service – that is, if the gatekeeper even permits them to access its broadband customers.
You can see that this would quickly destroy the openness, neutrality, and freedom that we cherish with today’s Internet. Instead, it would create a closed “walled garden” proprietary Internet designed solely to maximize the profits of the broadband provider. If we had this closed Internet, would two grad students who came up with a better search engine ever have it adopted, without advertising and by word of mouth, by hundreds of millions of users? Would that better search engine ever have seen the light of day, let alone become Google?
As creative artists, we've seen this closed business model take over both broadcast television and, increasingly, cable television. Been there, done that, and seen that it is extremely harmful to independence, diversity, creativity, and free expression. That’s why we are fighting against that closed and concentrated model taking over the Internet, and turning the Net into just another cable TV system, albeit with more channels. For more on how this battle, oft termed “Net Neutrality,” affects creative media artists, see our article posted on our website,
"The Future Internet: Open or Closed?"
You can visit the Creative Voices web site by clicking
here.
today, February 7, 2006, is "Net Neutrality Day" in the U.S. Senate
You can watch the playback of today's "Net Neutrality" hearings from the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, without having to travel to Washington, D.C. Just click
here and then click again where it says: "Click here for video of this hearing."
The actual hearings start at 11 minutes and 50 seconds into the clip.
read about Google's relationship to net neutrality
For valuable insight into Google's situation
vis a vis the issue of net neutrality, take a look at this February 3, 2006, article by Anna Palmer in
Legal Times, entitled
"Google Searches for D.C. Presence."
net neutrality goes mainstream
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